Those of us who work in marketing know that data is our gold. Our dashboards are the compasses that guide us daily to continue advancing our tactics or pivoting them toward new strategies. Without clarity in this data, or without a lot of effort to obtain it, the path becomes murky, and advancing toward business objectives wears down even the most committed teams.
In our years of consulting in Performance Marketing, we've seen astonishing [almost miraculous] changes after designing, configuring, and training teams on a new centralized reporting system.
Moving from a tangle of scattered Excel spreadsheets where each team measures their own KPIs to a single, clear, and simple central document that represents all teams' actions and updates automatically is a true game-changer.
If you're wondering why you can't use reports from digital tools (advertising management tools, digital analytics tools, CRMs, etc.) directly, the answer is simple: you need a matrix tool that integrates all your data sources and allows you to customize your main KPIs so that you only measure what really matters to your business.
Starting to design a reporting system means facing a blank page. You'll hit a snag at times. Don't worry, follow these steps to optimize the process!
Step 1: Know your buyer journey map and conduct interviews with your teams
Long before choosing a tool, you need as much information as possible about the path leads take to conversion in your business. What is a lead? How many stages are there? What action determines the transition from one stage to the next?
Furthermore, to ensure the system isn't imposed, represents all teams, and is therefore seen as useful in their daily work, you need a deep understanding of the needs of each of the stakeholders involved. Through interviews with marketing and sales teams, you can find out which data is most important for each team to consider, what data they'd like to see to make better decisions, and promise them a "magic" system that will automatically collect all that data.
Step 2: Gather all your data sources.
Now that you know the path from leads to conversion and retention and have listened to the needs of each team, it's time to shed light on all the tools actively collecting data in your business.
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Paid Media Platforms (Meta Ads, Google Ads, LinkedIn Ads, TikTok Ads…)
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Web analytics (Google Analytics…)
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Conversion forms, calls, downloads, contact requests...
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CRM
Step 3: Identify key KPIs
Next, with clarity on the process and data sources, identify the most important KPIs at each stage of the journey map and design a first draft of how you'd like to visualize the information before embarking on any automation.
Chances are your digital tools' dashboards are already providing you with a wealth of data. This isn't operational. At this stage, you need to simplify and select the most important data for your business from each tool collected in step 2. What data am I interested in from Meta Ads? What data am I interested in from Google Analytics? What data is critical to my CRM?
Remember that we're designing a general dashboard, and if any of the teams need to dig deeper into specific information, they can always consult the native digital tool in question to find it.
Step 4: Choose an automation tool
Now comes the technical part. There are many digital tools on the market to automate your data sources into a single central dashboard. We're opting for a combination of Supermetrics, as it allows integrations with multiple platforms, but there are other similar platforms such as Funnel.io or Porter. For this step, it's extremely important to have the support of a technical expert who's familiar with APIs and integrations and can configure the dashboards based on the design you've previously developed.
Step 5: Share and integrate into team routines
Don't forget to hold a comprehensive educational session so that all project members understand this new tool and learn how to use it. This new system requires a shift in mindset and gradually retraining teams to stop using parallel reports, as this would undermine data reliability and hinder collaborative decision-making.
There are multiple ways to integrate this new dashboard into team routines. A good practice is to use it in all follow-up meetings as a single source of information.
Step 6: Establish checkup routines
The technology behind automation tools like Supermetrics or Funnel, while highly reliable, can fail. A simple change to a landing page form that isn't notified can alter tracking and, consequently, the final data display.
We recommend that you establish periodic reviews to ensure that the integrations are working correctly and delivering real results.
Having a customized and automated system in your business will change the lives of you and your teams. We dare say it that clearly. If it's time to take a big leap, we'd be happy to guide you through the process toward clarity in your data.
